50th anniversary: LaRussa goes pro

Fifty years ago today, a kid signed his first professional contract with a major league team. He’d stick around the game for quite some time.

It was June 6, 1962, when the Kansas City A’s sign a 17-year-old kid from Tampa, Florida who had just graduated from high school. His name? Tony LaRussa.

He wouldn’t make much of an impression as a player. Despite a middling performance in the minors, LaRussa won a brief call-up to the major leagues in 1963. After picking up 11 hits, he went back to the minors, where he stayed for five more years.

By the time he came back with the A’s, they were in Oakland and loaded with talent. LaRussa was never much more than organizational filler for them. One nice thing for LaRussa, however, was that he got to know a better prospect than himself, catcher Dave Duncan. Later on, Duncan would be LaRussa’s longtime pitching coach.

Not needing LaRussa, the A’s traded him in mid-1971. His prospect years over, he now became a minor league vagabond. Though he briefly played in the majors for the Braves and Cubs, LaRussa spent most of his time in the minors for a handful of organizations. While he amassed just 35 big league hits, his collected over 1,100 hits in the minors.

In 1977, he was a 32 year old hitting under .200 for the St. Louis Cardinals’ Triple-A club. His playing days were done.

Of course, that’s when LaRussa’s career really took off. In mid-1978, the White Sox tabbed him to manage their Southern League team. Apparently his smarts had impressed the Chicago brass when he played in their minor league system in 1976-77. The club immediately improved under LaRussa and continued to play at a high level in 1979. Then, midway through the ’79 campaign, the Sox fired their major league manager.

They didn’t have to look far to find his replacement. LaRussa, still in his mid-30s, was a big league manager. He’d stick around for 33 years, missing only a few weeks in the middle of the 1986 season.

Either as player or manager, LaRussa has been employed by some franchise or another for almost every day from June 6, 1962 until October, 2011. He retired last year just before the 50th anniversary of his first baseball paycheck.

Aside from that, many other events celebrate their anniversary or “day-versary” (which is something occurring X-thousand days ago) today. Here they are, with the better ones in bold if you just want to skim.

Day-versaries

2,000 days since the Cubs sign free agent Ted Lilly. Rather memorably, team GM Jim Hendry signs the paperwork from his hospital bed, as he’s laid up at the moment. In a separate move, the team also signs Daryle Ward that day.

2,000 days since the Red Sox land a pair of relievers. They sign free agent J.C. Romero and get the Angels to trade them Brendan Donnelly.

4,000 days since Baltimore claims Tony Batista off waivers from Toronto.

1915 Red Sox select Herb Pennock, also a future Hall of Famer, off waivers from the A’s.

1917 Rogers Hornsby hits the first of 12 career grand slams. This is his only inside-the-park one.

1918 Casey Stengel returns to Ebbets Field for the first time since the Dodgers traded him away to the Giants. He returns in style, too. In his first at-bat, he steps out of the batter’s box, doffs his cap to the crowd, and a bird flies out. Bizarre—and awesome!

1920 St. Louis Cardinals play their last game at Robison Field (their home since 1893). They’ll move to Sportsman’s Park, where they’ll stay over 40 years.

1921 Bill Gatewood of the Detroit Stars pitches the first Negro Leagues no-hitter in a 4-0 win over the Cuban Stars.

1963 Billy Pierce allows the most humiliating pitch of his life, a walk-off home run to relief pitcher Lindy McDaniel. CHC 3, SFG 2 (10). It’s the second of three career home runs for McDaniel.

1963 Frank Robinson, who homered twice in the second game of yesterday’s doubleheader, homers twice in the first game of today’s doubleheader.

1963 Ball Four Tracer: In his book Ball Four, Jim Bouton recalled a time when he pitched for the Yankees and Baltimore’s Jackie Brandt hit a liner off his jaw, forcing him from the game. Well, that happened here.

1967 Philadelphia trades Bob Uecker to Atlanta. With the Braves, Uecker will be most effective as a catcher. Hall of Famer Phil Niekro will later credit Uecker with making him a Hall of Fame pitcher. Uecker made Niekro unafraid to throw the knuckler at any moment. The passed balls and problems would be on Uecker, and the wins and low ERA would be on Niekro. That’s the message Uecker gave him and that turned Niekro into a 300-game winner.

1975 Nolan Ryan attempts to throw his second consecutive no-hitter and doesn’t miss by much against Milwaukee. A Hank Aaron single in the sixth is the first hit he allows, and Ryan surrenders only two on the day.

1976 The Astros cancel a game on account of rain, which is pretty odd for a team that plays in a dome, but the rain was so bad that 20 fans had to come to the park via canoe to get their rain checks. Yeah, that’s a bad rainstorm—seven inches of rain to be exact.

1991 Indians demote Albert Belle to the minors for not running out a grounder in 2-1 loss to the White Sox.

1991 Royals 4, Rangers 3 (18). It ends on a walk-off error on a sacrifice hit attempt by Kurt Stillwell. The KC pitchers tossed 345 pitchers, the most known by one staff in a game. Texas’s Rafael Palmeiro has the worst WPA game of his career: -0.410 WPA, going 0-for-9 on the day.

1992 Lou Whitaker gets his 2,000th career hit in his 2,008th game played.

1993 Cal Ripken twists his right knee when his spikes catch on the infield grass in Orioles-Mariners game. He gets a swollen knee that nearly ends his streak, but (obviously) doesn’t.